Species Introduction: The Lygoids
Created not born with the exception of one, the lygoids are the dark humanoid wraiths that are the corrupted parts of a person’s soul and essence. They manifest when someone has their soul forcibly ripped away from their body. When this happens, the body dies and the lygoid has nowhere to go except into a new body. As hosts to the lygoid, the body cannot handle multiple souls in it at once, so the life of the host is gradually drained until there is nothing left, and that person dies as well. Because lygoids drain the life of everyone it touches, it can never have a true body, so they wander aimlessly jumping from body to body in the hopes of maintaining a corporeal hold to the world around them.
Instinctually, the lygoids long to be whole again. They constantly crave and are in search of a host that will be able to long term sustain them. When a lygoid does find a host, they not only gain control over the previous traits they had during their life before becoming a lygoid, but they also gain control over the traits of their host. This makes taking over creatures with magical abilities more appealing than those without. This is also tied into how long the lygoid is able to make the body of the host last in terms of expiration. The stronger the host the longer it will last. That makes humans, with no innate magical abilities of their own unappealing to the lygoid to take over.
Due to their short lifespans and lack of magical ability, humans typically last no more than a day or two at most with a lygoid in their body. The intense nature of the lygoid’s corruption is too much for a mere human body to handle so they don’t tend to last long as hosts. Some mortal creatures with innate magical abilities are able to last longer than humans but not by much, usually anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. Faeries on the other hand, although mortal, are blessed with long lives and incredible magical powers of varying degrees. A lygoid can typically expect to live up to a year in a faery and depending on the power level of the faery and the age, it can be longer.
Vampires are the ideal hosts for lygoids followed by angels. Although both are technically immortal, angels have a greater personal resolve in their souls making it more difficult to takeover than a vampire. Once taken over, however, the vampires’ and angels’ bodies can last many years with a lygoid inside it. Between the raw strength of an immortal creature and their varying magical abilities, vampires tend to be the most appealing and contribute the most benefits to takeover. The ongoing feud between the lygoids and vampires also makes them appealing targets to the lygoids as the first lygoid to exist has had a vendetta against the vampires for over a thousand years.
Not much is known about how the lygoids came to be except that they were once descended from the first dark faery. There is no known recorded information on their history aside from their persecuted by the first turned vampire. The only living people with any knowledge of the lygoid history are the Daron sisters, their progeny the first vampires, and the first lygoids themselves; Quinncey DeLavonte and his progeny daughter, Lilian.
